Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, June 25, 2009

That's the upshot of a decision issued Friday by a King County Superior Court judge, who cleared the way for a proposed Déjà Vu strip club -- adult cabaret in the court's parlance -- near Safeco Field.

Stripper's pole meets foul pole.

Over the objections of the Seattle Mariners and the public utility that operates the field, Judge John Erlick found that the City of Seattle did not err in permitting the proposed First Avenue club.

Erlick rejected the Mariners assertion that the City Council meant to keep strip clubs at least 800 feet away from "areas where children congregate" or sports arenas. That language is absent from the city ordinance drafted after Seattle's wholesale ban on new strip clubs was rejected as unconstitutional.

"If (the council) had intended to require dispersion from all places where children tend to congregate, it would have specifically included that language," Erlick said Friday. "This court refuses to read words into the ordinance which do not exist in the plain language."

During an earlier hearing, attorneys for the Mariners argued that the city had erred in permitting the club because Safeco should be considered a park or open space. One area the Mariners pointed to was a park is primarily used for bus parking; another is private property that may be developed in the future.

The proposed Déjà Vu would be on First Avenue South just south of Safeco Field, about 400 feet from the main home-plate entrance. The rear door of the club would be about 120 feet from a parking garage plaza where school buses frequently drop off students attending games.

Opponents of the club will decide in coming days whether to appeal Erlick's ruling, said Bart Waldman, Mariners executive vice president for governmental affairs.

Lauding the ruling, Peter Buck, attorney for the club owners, said the Mariners' moralizing throughout the legal proceeding strained credulity.

Buck dismissed the Mariners' assertions that children would be harmed by the strip club as specious.

Buck noted that a Déjà Vu club across First Avenue from Pike Place Market has done little to discourage or offend tourists there. And, like all Washington state strip clubs, the proposed facility will not serve alcohol.

The Mariners, however, do at Safeco Field.

"The Mariners mainly made a moral pitch, that this facility would be harmful to children," Buck said. "If they were really worried about children, they'd clean up their own act."

Erlick's ruling marked the first serious test of the 4-year-old restrictions on where strip clubs can be. Buck praised it as showing that business owners can get a fair shake, regardless of the business they're in.

"It means that an operation such as my client's can rely on the law as it is written," Buck said. "This law isn't about someone's moral values."

The Mariners have 30 days to file an appeal. If the team doesn't appeal, Buck said the club will likely open in six months.